Since I ended 2010 with a little Wal-Mart ditty, I figured it would only be fitting if I started 2011 with one. I left the bubs with Gramma and a breast milk bong, then headed out to do some solo shopping. This is pretty much heaven - not having a 16 pound weight attached to your chest, a ticking time bomb that may pop awake at any time and lose her mind for reasons unknown. It's still doable, even with my back threatening to buckle and sweat streaming down into my breast pads; it just gets tricky when you drop something or have to unload the cart or have to use the bathroom. (Which I have totally done with her still strapped to me. It’s like the tandem pissing Olympics. No booties lost in the toilet = success.)

So as I meandered through the ‘Mart, judging so terribly my fellow shoppers because, hey, if you as a grown man with red cheeks and thinning hair choose to don a XXXL hoody with a bright green Kermit face pattern and argue with your girlfriend who works on the docks and only shops at Marks Work Wearhouse about whether or not you can buy some kids sugar coma cereal, I GET TO JUDGE YOU FREE AND CLEAR WITH NO SHAME. Out loud even.

I should have gotten one of the 175 senior citizens hobbling around in there with their giant carts filled with 2 sticks of margarine to take a picture of the three of us, with me doing a "look at these losers" face and ironic thumbs up. That's how mean I am in my head.

But as I silently internally cut down and laughed at everybody, I realized with a jolt what the f*ck I looked like. Because shopping with a baby is hard, but it also validates and visually explains why I look like a freshly killed zombie. Hair matted at the nape of neck, fresh pimples on cheeks (fair, life, really f*cking fair), purple moons under eyes, pilled black tights stuffed into large clomping rain boots, shoulders reeking of regurgitated breast milk.. someone in that store must have passed me and shuddered for sure, thinking what new virus is she carrying? I paused, took a deep breath and stopped being a bitch. For the rest of the day anyways.

In developmental news, our three month old who is currently Hulk-busting out of clothing marked 6 months, has become incredibly orally fixated. Over Christmas, if you had her in your arms, she had your knuckles in her mouth. When I change her shirt she yells like a pterodactyl for the .02 seconds her hand is not available to be gnawed on. She purses her lips and expels long loops of saliva out of her mouth. After feeds, even after a “safe” amount of time has passed, she’ll casually leak out half a liter of half-digested milk out of the corner of her mouth onto an unwitting person or her 6th shirt of the day. Luckily she uses that same mouth to squeal with happiness and smile so big it morphs into a gaping toothless square of glee. Otherwise, she’d be dressed in garbage bags and kept in the empty bathtub most of the day. Also, I still haven’t slept more than 3 hours in a row since late September, but I found out I can eat Doritos. So, you win some, you lose some.

PS - Before Christmas I wrote a handy dandy last minute gift guide for R2AK. Really, all the gifts hold up for any occasion. So if you need gift advice from a girl who prefers Kraft singles and wears her husband's XL SuperHero shirts as acceptable driving-him-to-work garments, go take a gander.